The Forerunner Part 93

"Oh Dr. Lucy!" gasped poor Mirabella, whose aspect was that of a small boy in an August orchard. "Don't leave me! Oh do something for me quick!"

"Will you do just what I say?"

"I will! I will; I'll do _anything_!" said Mirabella, curling up in as small a heap as was possible to her proportions, and Dr. Lucy took the case.

We waited in the big bald parlors till she came down to tell us what was wrong. Emma seemed very anxious, but then Emma is a preternatural saint.

Arabella came home and made a great todo. "So fortunate that she was near my door!" she said. "Oh my poor sister! I am so glad she has a real doctor!"

The real doctor came down after a while. "She is practically out of pain," she said, "and resting quietly. But she is extremely weak, and ought not to be moved for a long time."

"She shall not be!" said Arabella fervently. "My own sister! I am so thankful she came to me in her hour of need!"

I took Emma away. "Let's pick up Mrs. Montrose," I said. "She's tired out with packing--the air will do her good."

She was glad to come. We all sat back comfortably in the big seat and had a fine ride; and then Mrs. Montrose had us both come in and take dinner with her. Emma ate better than I'd seen her in months, and before she went home it was settled that she leave with Mrs. Montrose on Tuesday.

Dear Emma! She was as pleased as a child. I ran about with her, doing a little shopping. "Don't bother with anything," I said, "You can get things out there. Maybe you'll go on to j.a.pan next spring with the James's."

"If we could sell the house I would!" said Emma. She brisked and sparkled--the years fell off from her--she started off looking fairly girlish in her hope and enthusiasm.

I drew a long sigh of relief.

Mr. MacAvelly has some real estate interests.

The house was sold before Mirabella was out of bed.

SHARES

To those who in leisure may meet Comes Summer, green, fragrant and fair, With roses and stars in her hair; Summer, as motherhood sweet.

To us, in the waste of the street, No Summer, only--The Heat!

To those of the fortunate fold Comes Winter, snow-clean and ice-bright, With joy for the day and the night, Winter, as fatherhood bold.

To us, without silver or gold, No Winter, only--The Cold!

GENIUS, DOMESTIC AND MATERNAL. II.

Consider the mighty influence of Dr. Arnold, of Emma Willard; and think of that all lost to the world, and concentrated relentlessly on a few little Arnolds and Willards alone!

The children of such genius can healthfully share in its benefits but not healthily monopolize them.

Our appreciation of this study is hampered by the limitation of little exercised minds. Most of us accept things as they are--cannot easily imagine them different, and fear any change as evil.

There was a time when there wasn't a school or a schoolhouse on earth; people may yet be found who see no need of them. To build places for children to spend part of the day in--away from their mothers--and be cared for by specialists!--Horrible!

The same feeling meets us now when it is suggested that places should be built for the babies to spend part of the day in--away from their mothers--and be cared for by specialists!--Horrible! Up hops in every mind those twin bugaboos, the Infant Hospital and the Orphan Asylum.

That is all the average mind can think of as an "inst.i.tution" for babies.

Think of the kindergarten. Think of the day-nursery. Multiply and magnify these a thousand fold; make them beautiful, comfortable, hygienic, safe and sweet and near--one for every twenty or thirty families perhaps; and put in each, not a casual young kindergarten apprentice or hired nurse; but Genius, Training and Experience. Then you can "teach the mothers," for at last there can be gathered a body of facts, real knowledge, on the subject of child culture; and it can take its place in modern progress.

Every mother whose baby spent its day hours in such care would take home new knowledge and new standards to aid her there; and the one mother out of twenty or thirty who cared most about it would be in that baby house herself--she is the Genius. Not anybody's hired "nursemaid," but a nurse-mother, a teacher-mother, a Human Mother at last.

The same opening confronts us when we squirm so helplessly in what we call "the domestic problem." That problem is "How can every woman carry on the same trade equally well?"

Answer--She can't.

All women do not like to "keep house;" and there is no reason why all men, and all children, as well as the women, should suffer in health, comfort and peace of mind under their mal-administration. We need the Expert, the Specialist, the Genius, here too.

Thousands of discontented women are doing very imperfectly what hundreds could do well and enjoy.

Thousands of men are paying unnecessary bills, eating what we may politely call "unnecessary food," and putting up with the discontented woman. Thousands of children are growing up as best they can under inexpert mothers and inexpert housekeepers. Thousands of unnecessary deaths, invalids, and miserable lives; millions and millions of dollars wasted; and all this for the simple lack of society's first law--Specialization.

Here are all these unspecialized housekeepers wriggling miserably with their unspecialized servants; and others--the vast majority, remember--"doing their own work" in a crude and ineffectual manner; and there is not even a standard whereby to judge our shortcomings! We have never known anything better, and the average mind cannot imagine anything better than it has ever known.

(When we have expert Childculture, we shall cultivate the imagination!)

"Do you want us to give up our homes?" cries the Average Mind. "Must we live in hotels, eat in restaurants?"

No, dear Average Mind.

Every family should have its own home; and it ought to be a real home, with a real garden. Among the homes and gardens should stand the baby-house with its baby-gardens; and quite apart from these fair homes should stand the Workshops. The Cleaning Establishment, the Laundry--the Cookshop; the Service Bureau; each and all in charge of its Genius--its special person who likes that kind of work and does it well.

The home, quiet, sweet and kitchenless, will be visited by swift skilled cleaners to keep it up to the highest sanitary standards; the dishes will come in filled with fresh, hot food, and go out in the same receptacle, for proper cleansing; the whole labor of "housekeeping" will be removed from the home, and the woman will begin to enjoy it as a man does. The man also will enjoy it more. It will be cleaner, quieter, more sanitary, more beautiful and comfortable, and far less expensive.

And what of the average woman?

She will cease to exist. She will become specialized as every civilized person must be. She will not be a woman less, but a human being more.

And in these special lines of genius, domestic and maternal, she will lift the whole world forward with amazing speed. The health, the brain-power, the peace of mind, of all our citizens will be increased by the work of the Mother-Genius and maintained by the Domestic Genius.

Have you never known one of those born mothers, with perhaps some training as a kindergartner added; who loves to be with children and whom children love to be with? She is healthy and happy in her work, and the children she cares for grow up with fewer tears, with better const.i.tutions, with strong young hearts and clear brains to meet life's problems.

Have you never compared such a mother and such children with those we see commonly about us? The mother, nervous, irritable, unfit for her work and not happy in it; a discontented person, her energies both exhausted and unused. What she wastes in uncongenial effort she might spend joyfully in work she was fit for.

Have you never seen the sullen misery, the horrible impotent rage, the fretful unhappiness of mishandled children? Not orphans; and not "neglected"; not physically starved or beaten; but treated with such brutal clumsiness that their childhood is clouded and their whole lives embittered and weakened by the experience?

Are we so blinded by the beautiful ideal of motherhood as it should be, that we continually overlook the limitations of motherhood as it is?

Again have you not seen the home of homes; where the cleanliness is perfect, the quiet and harmony a joy to the soul; where beauty and peace are linked with economy and wisdom? There are such--but they are not common.

As in the other case, our ideals blind us to the facts. Most homes are sadly imperfect; enjoyed by their inmates because they are used to them--and have known no better. What we have so far failed to see is humanity's right to the best; in these departments of life, as well as others.

As we live now, the ever-growing weight of our just demands for a higher order of home falling on the ever more inadequate shoulders of the Average Woman, both Motherhood and the home are imperilled. We are horribly frightened when we see our poor Average Woman shrink from maternity, and [illegible] at housework. We preach at her and scold her and flatter her and woo her, and, if we could, we would force her back into her old place, child-bearer and burden-hearer, the helpless servant of the world.